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In Sri Lanka, where the Prime minister stepped down after weeks of protests over the worsening economic crisis, five people were killed and more than 225 were injured in a wave of violence.
As clashes erupted late Monday night, sudden forced an indefinite curfew across the 22-million-person country and called in the military to help quell the violence.
Recent Violations in Sri Lanka
Anti-government protesters who had been peacefully demonstrating since April 9 began retaliating after being attacked by supporters of outgoing Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The following are the major incidents:
Protesters are shot by MPs.
Amarakeerthi Athukorala, a ruling-party legislator, opened fire on demonstrators blocking his vehicle as he was leaving the capital, Colombo, on Monday, killing a 27-year-old man and injuring two others.
The MP later committed suicide, according to police, but the party claims he was murdered. It was unclear how the lawmaker’s bodyguard was killed.
On Monday, a provincial politician from Rajapaksa’s party who has not been identified shot two people dead and injured three others in the southern town of Weeraketiya. He has gone missing.
Politicians’ homes were set ablaze.
Despite curfews, at least 41 homes of top ruling party legislators were set on fire overnight. Hundreds of motorbikes parked in those homes were also destroyed by fire.
“This is something we should have done sooner,” an unidentified man standing in front of a burning minister’s home told a local media network. “We apologise for not being able to burn it sooner.”
An arson attack in the north-central town of Anuradhapura destroyed the home and shrine of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s individual shaman, Gnana Akka.
The Rajapaksa Museum was demolished.
Police said mobs razed an exhibition about the Rajapaksas in the ruling family’s native home of Meda Mulana in the deep south island.
Mobs trashed the building and the nearby ancestral Rajapaksa home, flattening two wax statues of the Rajapaksa parents.
An arson attack also destroyed the Rajapaksas’ political office in the northwestern town of Kurunegala.
Hit by a state symbol
A truck used by security services to block the main entrance to the prime minister’s official Temple Trees domicile in Colombo, a key symbol of state power in Sri Lanka, was set on fire by mobs.
